OTTAWA: Canadian Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly has warned Indian diplomats and put them “on notice” following allegations of criminal activity linked to agents operating under orders from New Delhi.
The warning comes after Canada expelled six Indian diplomats earlier this week, accusing them of involvement in murder, extortion, and intimidation on Canadian soil.
Among those expelled was India’s High Commissioner to Canada, who has been named a person of interest in the June 18, 2023, assassination of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a prominent Canadian Sikh activist, in British Columbia.
Nijjar had been a vocal supporter of the Khalistan movement, which seeks to establish a separate Sikh state in India.
New Delhi, in a retaliatory move, expelled six Canadian diplomats from India. However, Joly maintained that there is strong evidence linking Indian diplomats to criminal activities targeting Sikh separatists in Canada.
“There was definitely a threat, and that’s exactly why the RCMP (Royal Canadian Mounted Police) decided to take the extraordinary measure of making public the fact that Canadians were being intimidated, victims of extortion, or even received death threats because agents and diplomats from India were linked to these criminal actions,” Joly said at a news conference in Montreal, as reported by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC).
Joly said that such actions were unprecedented in Canada’s history and that the country would not tolerate any form of transnational repression on its territory. “That level of transnational repression cannot happen on Canadian soil,” she added. She warned Indian diplomats to refrain from any further illegal activities.
